H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms • Hacker News Board

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#101

Post by vinay427 » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

wz1000 wrote: post #53

adekok wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

something something democracy . The country is run (roughly) on something resembling democracy and equality. If, instead, the ethos changes to "more power to people who pay more", we give up any pretence at democracy. We might as well just advertise that politicians are for sale. Which the mostly are right now, but at least they have to pay lip service to the people. Once that's gone, the culture of the country will…

Most countries today will give you citizenship if you pay enough.

Source please. From my experience, this is not even close to true. You might gain a residence visa that after several years might yield citizenship, and even this is not available in many countries.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#102

Post by LordKano » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 1:57 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #58

kls wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the incentive system. I have never been known for my lack of directness and in given so, I used to work with an Indian developer who was very good at his job. So one day I just flat out asked him, I said Karthick why do a good portion of Indian developers suck, his response floored me. Without missing a beat he responded, look it's a misaligned incentive system. When I go back to India the first questi…

For what it's worth, maybe the U.S. would have better employment among young men if the "IT is in demand and steady work" meme found a place here.

Many of us who went to college in the 1990s saw this. There were so many people who thought that getting a CS, CIS or CIT degree was going to lead to them becoming dotcom millionaires that it was sad.

We had an abundance of IT people with little actual knowledge and even less interest around the time of the dotcom bust.

I used to work with a guy who was like that. He was a decent programmer but his limitations made themselves readily apparent when the performance of his code was observed.

I guess this is my long-winded way of saying to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#103

Post by loph » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 1:57 PM UTC

This one sentence says it all:

"The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of $117,000."

None of those salaries listed are competitive with what a non-H1B (read citizen or permanent resident) would earn. Indeed.com quotes the average SD salary in Seattle (think Amazon and Microsoft) as 126,000 and San Francisco at 134,000. Companies sponsoring H1B need to be held to the letter of the law -- the salaries must be competitive. The demand for H1B visas would fall if the imported labor was paid fairly.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#104

Post by ones_and_zeros » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 1:57 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #30

What's the argument against using an auction for H1-B visas rather than a lottery? That'd maximize the tax collected from their salaries and ensure the salaries are on par with the going rate for said workers. Arguably it's in the interests of everyone besides companies trying to get cheaper labor via H1-B visas. The only counterpoint I've ever heard is " It's not fair for company XYZ in low cost of living Podunk, US…

The points I've seen and agree with for an argument against an auction is:

- It is a tacit acceptance of the falsehood that there is a skills shortage.

- It ultimately relies on scarcity of visas. There will be a number of visas to auction off and this number will become a political football that is tweaked and tweaked until it is meaningless. What is the point of an auction if there are a million visas being auctioned off?

- It does not address the corporate/education institution partnership loophole.

Ultimately if they are the best and brightest the visas should be given to the employee not the employer and, if the employee wants, they should be put on a fast track to a green card as soon as they start (6 mo-1 year)

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#105

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 1:59 PM UTC

planetjones wrote: post #21

Is this disagreeing with Blake Irvine. See https://www.google.co.uk/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/02... This is the man who refers to H1B visas as genius visas. I have worked with many Indian outsourcing companies and while talented people do exist, calling their employees genius is wholly inaccurate (as would be calling most software devs in the Western world genius). I did laugh when I read irving's original pos…

The "genius" is allowing people like Irving to print money on the backs of kids from India.

I recently coordinated a operational outsourcing task where a big vendor took over some specific functions. They sent over these two kids on H1-B visas who are brilliant, but are making something like $25/hr (probably 18% of bill rate) and work 20-30 hours of overtime. Their subcontractor/pimp probably skims more than they make.

My grandfathers immigrated here from Ireland as a chauffeur and laborer and retired as a successful pub owner and senior civil servant. That's the story of America.

Immigration is great -- we should just do a lottery for green cards and let people move here without the corporate overseer. I don't care where your from... you should be here as a free person.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#106

Post by nottorp » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 1:59 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #77

nottorp wrote: post #43

Isn't a H-1B a form of indentured servitude? As in, if you change jobs you lose your visa? If yes, you don't get the competent ones but the cheap ones who have no choice. The good ones work on their terms for whomever they please. Edit: combine that with kls's answer about incentives, and you see why this visa system isn't quite working.

The same applies for Americans working in Europe as highly skilled migrants. A company sponsors your visa, and when that job ends (like the company shuts down, for example), you must go find another company willing to sponsor you. Or if you're fortunate, as with Americans in Netherlands, you can start your own business easily and get a freelance visa. But the point is the same - you work at the place that sponsored y…

Well, for some reason nobody's complaining about Western Europe immigrants taking US jobs...

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#107

Post by raverbashing » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

rodionos wrote: post #24

Number of H-1B visas issued for Indian citizens, 1997-2015: https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/1bc51064 Top H-1B countries: https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/04040e14

Can't Mexicans get a TN visa?

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#108

Post by mberning » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 2:03 PM UTC

loph wrote: post #103

This one sentence says it all: "The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of…

It is ridiculous that so many people support this wretched and miserable system. Anybody that has worked with these type of firms knows what is going on.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#109

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 2:04 PM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #102

humanrebar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, maybe the U.S. would have better employment among young men if the "IT is in demand and steady work" meme found a place here.

Many of us who went to college in the 1990s saw this. There were so many people who thought that getting a CS, CIS or CIT degree was going to lead to them becoming dotcom millionaires that it was sad. We had an abundance of IT people with little actual knowledge and even less interest around the time of the dotcom bust. I used to work with a guy who was like that. He was a decent programmer but his limitations made t…

I also want companies to either pursue vanilla tech stacks or aggressively retrain almost-qualified people for their special-snowflake systems.

I think just shoving people into tech is short-sighted. That's not what I want.

That being said, much of American youth sees "business", law, medicine, and even entertainment (including sports) as a great way to succeed. We would do well to put engineering, especially IT, on that list.

Re: H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms

#110

Post by perseusprime11 » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 2:06 PM UTC

loph wrote: post #103

This one sentence says it all: "The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500. In contrast, America’s five biggest tech firms—Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft—submitted just 31,000 applications, and proposed to pay their workers a median salary of…

I agree. There are only two factors that contribute to this problem- 1) Hiring at low wages to help the bottom line of a company and 2) Hiring quickly because we need "bodies" to show progress against projects.